“I’ve been working on another music project: it’s a custom-built Arduino-based synthesizer and keyboard called “Pentasynth”. Pentasynth uses a keyboard based on a five note pentatonic scale, so it’s easy to play for people with limited background in music (such as young kids) and encourages experimentation and improvisation. Pentasynth creates a user-selectable accompaniment including different drum patterns, bass lines and chord progressions and allows the user to play a pentatonic melody line over the top. Under the hood, the audio generation is performed using a four channel, 10kHz playback of wavetables (sine, pulse, sawtooth, triangle and random noise) using a micro-controller generated PWM that is then passed through a low-pass filter and into a small amplifier and speaker. The microcontroller is programmed in Arduino, with code based on “The Synth”, a wavetable synth library by DZL/Illustron. Pentasynth has controls for volume, tempo and selection of different accompaniment patterns. The keys and case components are 3D printed, with the main case panelling carved from clear acrylic using Carvey. Custom PCBs containing switches for detection of key presses were also carved on Carvey.
My local makerspace (Thinkspace) got in some carvable PCB blanks for Carvey last year, and I had been thinking about trying them out. A while ago, I had picked up a broken kids toy electric guitar from the side of the road (I like picking up random electronics junk I find :) ). I ripped it apart just out of curiosity to see how it worked. The guitar was controlled by little buttons: the buttons were basically bits of plastic that held a little piece of clear rubber with a little bit of conductive material in it. When the button is pressed, it would push the conductive material across a PCB with a criss-cross of conductive tracks that close a switch, that is then detected by a little microcontroller to produce a sound:”